Closer Look
Time to prepare, not panic: Medical trainees take ChatGPT for a test run
Brittany Trang/STAT
What happens if you ask a roomful of medical trainees to solve a diagnostic riddle — and, by the way, consult Dr. ChatGPT? Internal medicine residents at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston rose to the occasion when asked to weigh in on the case of a 39-year-old woman with fever and pain in her left knee. Large language models like GPT-4 have barely entered clinical practice, but their footprint is expected to expand. So it's time for medical educators to prepare, not panic.
On this day, the workshop tested the limits and potential of AI. "The takeaway is that GPT-4 is likely able to serve as a thought partner or an adjunct to an experienced physician who is stumped in a case," said Beth Israel Deaconess's Adam Rodman. The question is how carefully doctors can learn to incorporate its outputs. STAT's Katie Palmer and Brittany have more — including the correct diagnosis.
in the lab
A new atlas maps the kidney
Behold the kidney, one of the most architecturally complex organs in the human body. Pulling from years of work and all the "-omics" out there, researchers have unveiled a detailed atlas in Nature. The resource, which could be key to understanding kidney diseases, will make it easier to pin down 51 main cell types, 28 kidney injury cellular states, and 1.2 million injury neighborhoods. "You have unhappy neighbors shouting at each other. And we learn exactly what words are used, meaning what genes are expressed," paper co-author Matthias Kretzler said.
One in every seven adults has chronic kidney disease, the CDC estimates, but most of them don't know they're ill until later stages of disease when symptoms appear. The hope is that the kidney atlas can get scientists on the same page and push the field toward some breakthroughs after decades of relative stagnation. STAT's Isabella Cueto tells us there's more to do.
global health
Gavi's outgoing leader reflects on vaccinating 'an eighth of humanity'
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images
Seth Berkley (above) has watched Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, grow from a small secretariat into a global powerhouse advancing new vaccines and expanding coverage, especially in lower-income countries. "Gavi has vaccinated more than a billion individual children," he told STAT's Helen Branswell as he nears retirement as CEO next month. "That's half of the world's children every year. Right now an eighth of humanity has received a Gavi vaccine." Some questions and answers:
Could the Covid vaccine market crater in the next couple of years?
If we do not have new big outbreaks, changing disease patterns, etc., it may be that people will not continue to get annual shots. That would change if we had a pan-coronavirus vaccine, or we had a vaccine that prevented infection in addition to disease.
As you look to the future, what worries you about this sphere?
I think we're going into an era of poly-epidemics.
Read the full interview.
No comments